[FRIAM] RE Self consciousness and Passive Darwinism.

[Phil Henshaw]

> 
> So you would say that a thermostat (which process information 
> about itself, ie its set temperature) is self-aware. (The 
> term self-aware is more usual, and I take it to be what you 
> mean by self-concsious).
for me, no, not at all.  Consciousness in some primitive sense might not
be 'self-consciousness'.   Is an ant self conscious?   Doubtful.  Does
it have an awareness of some kind, and act as a whole as it's awareness
responds to events?   Maybe not for every definition of the terms but
then that would leave you without terms for what kind of unity of
behavior an ant has.

> There is some evidence that a few of the higher species of 
> animals have this ability - apes, dolphins, maybe macaques - 
> have this ability, but that is about it. It is an extremely 
> rare ability in the animal world.
Dogs too.  Some are emotional ditzes, and some real crafty.   You can
see a whole range of their awarenesses and levels of intention on any
street corner, well maybe if you let what they do be a little
suggestive.  How else are you supposed to know what's going on inside
other things that obviously are not controlled from the outside?  Some
pull the dodge that there's really nothing with an inside since we can't
make rules about anything except information and we have none.    QED?
(but maybe it's ambiguous which way)




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